Malcolm wrote:There are various accounts of Virupa, and they do not all agree in particulars --

I hope you will publish the various accounts.

You really need to read Rin po che ljong shing

The THL translation tool can't parse that. Who wrote it? Would you please give the title in Tibetan? Precious Tree ( རིན་པོ་ཆེ ལྗོན་ཤིང་), Precious Wish-Granting Tree?

As for Dzogchen, all I can say is that in general Dzogchen practitioners are not governed by rules at all, there are no vows or samayas to follow in particular, no paths and stages, no particular conduct to adopt or reject. As long as you are not indifferent and mindful, you don't need rules, vows and samayas.

You mean other than maintaining the view. But this is where people (Black Rudra of example) can run into trouble. As Andreas Kreschmar has noted, around wisdom masters, everything gets enhanced. He was talking specifically in the context of "neurosis". So our confusion, ignorance, patterns of thinking, habits and defilements all get enhanced at least in part because blessing wisdom and our own budding wisdom has shone a spotlight on them. But if we can't deal with that, there is trouble.

The teaching of Buddha gotra or families also applies to people dealing with the poisons. ChNNR mentions in "Dzogchen and the Way of Crystal" (I think) that he had to be reminded of this. The Buddha Famly classifications are for people personally and their different characteristics and inclinations. Consequently people will need to deal with the poisons very carefully, gradually, suddenly, forcefully, or a mixture. There is a least one Nyingma teaching that combines all three approaches (Sravakayana, Paramitayana and Vajrayana).

As for Dzogchen, all I can say is that in general Dzogchen practitioners are not governed by rules at all, there are no vows or samayas to follow in particular, no paths and stages, no particular conduct to adopt or reject. As long as you are mindful and not indifferent you don't need rules, vows and samayas.

You mean other than maintaining the view.

Not even maintaining the view is a samaya.

But this is where people (Black Rudra of example) can run into trouble.

Tharpa Nagpo got into trouble because he had a nihilistic view, not because he had a good view.

As for Dzogchen, all I can say is that in general Dzogchen practitioners are not governed by rules at all, there are no vows or samayas to follow in particular, no paths and stages, no particular conduct to adopt or reject. As long as you are mindful and not indifferent you don't need rules, vows and samayas.

Would be interesting if you could offer some proof of that strange idea, but there seems to be nothing at all.

/magnus

Dzogchen is snga 'gyur early translation, but then so is yoga tantra, and so on, even Vinaya.

I would say that Nyingma = Guhyagarbha -- that is the main tantra of the Nyingma school.

But the main tantra of Dzogpa Chenpo is not Guhyagarbha, it is the sgra thal gyur.

Since this is the case, really, Nyingma is a Vajrayāna school. Further, Nyingma is a gradual path school. Dzogchen is not a gradual path at all, not even a little.

We have had this discussion in various forms for years, no need to hash it out again.

M

Vajrayana is fine with me, it has both the guhyagarbha and the gra thal gyur as well as thousands of profound terma teachings. To limit yourself to an exclusive non-gradual approach is not exactly helpful and for this reason there isn't a single master in any Dzogchen lineage that ever done that, at least to my knowledge.

/magnus

"To reject practice by saying, 'it is conceptual!' is the path of fools. A tendency of the inexperienced and something to be avoided."- Longchenpa

Okay people. Took a fair bit of effort to clean this thread up so let's keep on topic. This thread is NOT about what dzogchen practice is or is not, it is about "Uncommon Mahayana Approaches to Dealing With Desire".

Stick to the topic otherwise I will be forced to hand out official warnings and/or suspensions.

If you sense a tasty piece of food, and then in your mind later you desire that tasty piece of food, thinking of all it's good and pleasurable and gratifying qualities, you can dedicate all the pleasure of that thought to the Buddhas. Similarly, when you sense the tasty piece of food, you can dedicate the pleasure to the Buddhas, and of course, when you are eating, you can visualise yourself as offering it to the Buddhas a food offering.

Ben Yuan wrote:If you sense a tasty piece of food, and then in your mind later you desire that tasty piece of food, thinking of all it's good and pleasurable and gratifying qualities, you can dedicate all the pleasure of that thought to the Buddhas. Similarly, when you sense the tasty piece of food, you can dedicate the pleasure to the Buddhas, and of course, when you are eating, you can visualise yourself as offering it to the Buddhas a food offering.

Which just generally reinforces the idea that common Mahāyāna is not about enjoying sense pleasures for oneself, unlike Vajrayāna.

Ben Yuan wrote:If you sense a tasty piece of food, and then in your mind later you desire that tasty piece of food, thinking of all it's good and pleasurable and gratifying qualities, you can dedicate all the pleasure of that thought to the Buddhas. Similarly, when you sense the tasty piece of food, you can dedicate the pleasure to the Buddhas, and of course, when you are eating, you can visualise yourself as offering it to the Buddhas a food offering.

Which just generally reinforces the idea that common Mahāyāna is not about enjoying sense pleasures for oneself, unlike Vajrayāna.

Ben Yuan wrote:If you sense a tasty piece of food, and then in your mind later you desire that tasty piece of food, thinking of all it's good and pleasurable and gratifying qualities, you can dedicate all the pleasure of that thought to the Buddhas. Similarly, when you sense the tasty piece of food, you can dedicate the pleasure to the Buddhas, and of course, when you are eating, you can visualise yourself as offering it to the Buddhas a food offering.

Which just generally reinforces the idea that common Mahāyāna is not about enjoying sense pleasures for oneself, unlike Vajrayāna.

Not if you are the Buddha who is eating the offering (which you are).

If you are practicing Vajrayāna there is no need to dedicate the enjoyment of the objects of the five senses to "the buddhas", you enjoy them since you are offering them to yourself. There is no method of doing this in common Mahāyāna. It simply does not exist there.

Ben Yuan wrote:If you sense a tasty piece of food, and then in your mind later you desire that tasty piece of food, thinking of all it's good and pleasurable and gratifying qualities, you can dedicate all the pleasure of that thought to the Buddhas. Similarly, when you sense the tasty piece of food, you can dedicate the pleasure to the Buddhas, and of course, when you are eating, you can visualise yourself as offering it to the Buddhas a food offering.

...If you are practicing Vajrayāna there is no need to dedicate the enjoyment of the objects of the five senses to "the buddhas", you enjoy them since you are offering them to yourself.

If you have actualized your perception 100% as the deity. Otherwise you do explicitly (explicit in some way) offer the food to the deities. Various tantric practice explanations clearly explain how to make the offering (extensively as a visualized fire offering down to not extensively but still a visualization).

No. You do this as a practitioner on the path, not when you have realized mahāmudra. Anyway, you are missing the point -- which is: only in Vajrayāna (anuttarayoga tantra) does one make offerings to oneself as the deity from the beginning. These principles are so basic, I am surprised that practitioners who have been practicing for years do not understand this.

No. You do this as a practitioner on the path, not when you have realized mahāmudra.

I didn't say when you had actualized Mahamudra. You have misunderstood me.

As a practitioner in Vajrayana you ideally perceive yourself as the deity 24x7. However this would rarely be the case. Therefore when eating, you generate yourself as the deity and make an abbreviated or extensive food offering as indicated in the teaching.

However, because people are not usually able to perceive themselves 24x7 as the deity, even weakly, they do not just get up in the morning, do sadhana and then when they eat, just eat the food like people normally do. There is transformation in the form of visualization that takes place.

People could read your statement as suggesting that you just eat the food and automatically it becomes an offering to you as the deity, etc. That would only be true if you have 100% actualized your perception as the deity - if you really never strayed from that perception. That would be remarkable.

Anyway, you are missing the point -- which is: only in Vajrayāna (anuttarayoga tantra) does one make offerings to oneself as the deity from the beginning.

No, I didn't miss the point. Common Mahayana does not have this method or many methods, etc.

But other behavior, other potential offerings with bodies are somewhat problematic. Food offerings aren't. But dealing with harsh speech is. Dealing with abusive people is. Transforming these into bliss can be difficult. Or in the case of sex, not being carried away by the mundane, physical bliss can be problematic to say nothing of transformation.

Malcom wrote:No. You do this as a practitioner on the path, not when you have realized mahāmudra. Anyway, you are missing the point -- which is: only in Vajrayāna (anuttarayoga tantra) does one make offerings to oneself as the deity from the beginning. These principles are so basic, I am surprised that practitioners who have been practicing for years do not understand this.

Thanks for clarifying.

I hope it did not come across as if I was trying to pass my suggestion as an official practice of a lineage, it is just something I made up myself. Apologies.